GODDAMN ELECTRIC!

There was a moment in time when games were practically defined by their intros. Games were bought based on a strong, technically stunning intro. This is not so anymore as the game intro has been relegated to being nothing more than an afterthought. I was also very pleased to see that many of my favourite game intros can easily be seen again via YouTube. Let's take a trip down memory lane shall we? Here we go .... the top 10 game intros of all time!

Wing Commander 2: Vengeance of the Kilrathi
This intro really blew me away when it first came out. Great animated 2D art, professional voice acting, and awesome rendered space fighters. I remember being awestruck watching this on a sweet Magnavox PC with a CD-ROM drive, VGA graphics, and a SoundBlaster 8-bit sound card (the first commercial sound card with a DAC, AFAIK). Watch it here.

Dune 2
Holy shit. Most intense intro ever. Back in the day I watched this thing almost every time I wanted to play some Dune 2. The narrator's voice is so intense. "Only one house will prevail. Your battle for Dune begins ... NOW." Watch it here.

Star Control 2
This one is up there with the absolute best. As everyone knows, Star Control 2 has some of the most insane game music ever, and this intro sets the tone for one of the greatest games of all time so well it hurts. The source code for Star Control 2 has been released by the way, and there continues to be a rabid following for this game. The current open source version of SC2 is called "The Ur-Quan Masters". Watch the intro here.

Starcraft
I have practically memorized the dialogue of this intro after watching it so many times ("Quit pickin' at it!"). The intro cinematic as well as all the other cinematics in this game represented some of the best pre-rendered CG at the time. Protoss FTW!

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War
While this kind of goes against the nostalgic tone of this top 10, I had to include it. Warhammer 40k: DoW is my favourite RTS to come out since Starcraft (appropriate since the Starcraft universe was heavily influenced by Warhammer 40k), and this intro really makes me want to go play it some more. It is the best recent intro I have seen, by far. Watch it here.

Fallout
Many argue that this is the greatest game ever, and with good reason. The music and art direction here sets the stage for one of the greatest game atmospheres ever. If you have not played Fallout, shame on you! Watch the intro here.

Flashback
Short and very sweet best describes the stylish intro video for Interplay's absolutely amazing 2d puzzle based shooter. Watch it here.

King's Quest V
I just had to include a Sierra classic in here. King's Quest V was my first exposure to 256 colour graphics. Watching this video for the first time at my local computer store was pretty shocking, and made me highly envious of anyone with a VGA card and monitor. The hand painted graphics, the memorable Sierra sprite animation, and the moody soundtrack really presented a package that stunned the gaming world. A single tear rolls down my cheek as I write this *sniff sniff*. Watch it here.

Ninja Gaiden (NES)
You gotta hand it to Tecmo for making such a classic, cinematic intro with such tiny hardware resources available on the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment system. This intro's music and simple yet elegant animation really tugs at my heart. Watch it here.

Half Life
Some might argue that this title should be disqualified from this list. But I just couldnt do it. Half Life was the un-intro and it brought on a new era of in-engine game intros that sucked you right in. Kudos to Half Life's developers for really thinking outside of the box on this one. See it here.

Enjoyed this feature?

Despite the naysayers, I believe season six of the greatest drama on television was pretty good. It was also a pretty good technical achievement on HBO's part, making it a very strong first showing on the HD DVD format.

The picture quality on this was noticeably better than the high definition airing of The Sopranos on Canada's Movie Network HD. The colours were more solid, the picture was much more detailed and there was a completely lack of any compression artifacts. I thought it looked slightly better than Deadwood on TMNHD, which I believe is some of the best HD currently on the air.

I cannot wait for the earlier seasons to be released in an HD format!

Very good transfer, quality wise I would say it is on par with The Thing.

The smelting factory (lots of sparks, fire in a dark setting) and the hunting scenes (breathtaking mountain views) stood out to me as particularly stunning scenes.

The majority of the movie is not so visually stunning, but is a satisfying overall experience accurate to the toned-down look of the movie.

One curiosity is that in several scenes, we see vietnam war scenes that are clearly stock footage, because they look so different (in a bad way) from the rest of the movie.

I was pleased with this release.